Scarborough: No One in Mainstream TV Supports Limiting Immigration

Europe has been the target of numerous acts of Muslim terrorism, while its economies suffer and unemployment is rampant. The United States is still recovering from 9-11 and has been the object of a number of terrorist attacks/attempts since then. Yet in neither country is there a voice in mainstream television saying that right-wing parties might have a point when they advocate limits on immigration.

That was Joe Scarborough's point on today's Morning Joe: "I have yet to hear one person on American television or European television, mainstream, say these people [right-wingers favoring immigration restrictions] may have a point."

The American revolution succeeded in 1776-1781 for several reasons, but a big one was the fact that intelligent, thoughtful people carefully and publicly explained the reasons for that revolution. We do not today have mainstream conservatives thoughtfully articulating our positions in the mainstream media and putting their reasoning where the logic will reach the general public.

The moral authority of small government conservatism is so obvious to many of us that we don’t go back to first principles, but that means we fail to convert those in the middle. To some extent FR is an echo chamber, where it is reassuring to read that there are still sensible people in America despite what we see from this White House and from Romney/McCain/Christie/Bush. However, we usually leave out the supporting reasoning that goes back to fundamentals, the reasoning that is needed to convert “moderates” to supporting what we see as an obvious position favoring the rule of law. We need Palin, Cruz, and other true conservatives articulating that stance, not just the final positions but the justifications, and we need them doing it on Sunday talk shows, network interviews, and every other public venue that they can find.

Those who speak for conservatism cannot start with a conclusion on what our immigration laws should say. They have to reason beginning with whether we should have any immigration laws at all. Analyze what would happen with no border control at all, and the conclusion that we need border control becomes extremely strong. Then go from there to a discussion of what we should do to protect the borders and how we should decide who is allowed to enter our country. The conclusion that we should have laws that determine who may enter and that those laws should be enforced can easily be justified. We have not done a good job in providing the chain of reasoning there, and that was a mistake.

Similarly, “Repeal Obamacare” is not the same as advocating to let the poor die. We need to explain the reasoning, step by step. There is a huge amount of evidence on the harm that too-large government does to people who get caught in the way, including such liberal icons as Michael “I can’t breath” Brown, whom liberals would argue died over a law against selling single cigarettes. The Constitution limits the powers of the central government, and Obamacare steps outside those limits, as can be proven from the words of the law and from the words of the Constitution, regardless of what our politicized Supreme Court rules. Given that emergency rooms were already required to provide care to those who couldn’t pay, the yes/no decision on Obamacare is not about whether the poor will see a doctor, it’s about how payment will be made when the poor see doctors. Obamacare does a whole lot of damage just to change that payment method. In addition to being unconstitutional, Obamacare cancels medical insurance policies that many of us liked, and removes our freedom to choose how we will get treated and how we will pay for that treatment.

On every issue, we need to include the reasoning and avoid just jumping to an answer that we think is obvious. We need to work on converting those in the middle, and perhaps even reaching a few on the other end of the political spectrum. Elizabeth Warren does a better job articulating how bad welfare for the rich and corporate welfare are than republicans do. We need to express our agreement with her, and compete in the marketplace of ideas for support from those who do not want special exemptions for those with connections or any other form of crony capitalism. Once the low-information voters realize that small government conservatives have a different position from the Party of the Wealthy Republicans caricature, we may find that many of them support us. With effort and careful reasoning, we might even convert conservatism’s true enemies - McCain, Boehner, Romney, and possibly even Christie.

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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